Something’s coming, Bryan said, and he was right.
A storm breaks over London three days later, in the evening, whipping the sky into bruised eddies of purple and yellow, the rainfall like a flowing river and chunks of hail the size of golf balls. Where we are further inland, in Oxford, the rain is lighter but the air picks up an electric gloss that charges the hairs on the back of my neck. It’s frightening, but also thrilling. The air smells burnt.
Somehow the power is still on so Mom and I gather around the television to watch while Aunt Irene fries fresh ground beef, adding in a can of chili. She managed to get to the store early in the day to load up on fresh food before they ran out, and we have to cook the meat before losing power again. It’s a treat, rich and textured the way that nothing that comes out of a can ever is.
On the TV, helicopter coverage shows a great swell of water advancing upon the Thames Barrier, a series of steel gates and massive hydraulic piers stretching the breadth of the river. It almost looks as if it’s happening in slow motion. The wave crashes into the barrier—weird that there’s no sound, or so little of it, just the breathing of the newscaster—and then it creeps up and over.
“The problem,” announces the newscaster, “is that the storm arrived at high tide when the Thames was already at higher-than-expected levels. The flood damage is expected to be severe. Twenty-six underground stations are in high risk—we have live footage from a reporter, please excuse the poor quality.”
The image on the screen dissolves into a shot of a black metro sign with the following words lit up in dull, orange dots:
Welcome to NORTH GREENWICH Station
JUBILEE LINE: Good service operating.
The camera, lens spotted with condensation, shows a wave of seawater pouring across the walkway, splashing against the glass that encircles the escalators. The water flows down the escalators and smashes against the plastic partitions at the platform. The camera tilts as blue-tiled columns chart the flood’s depths on the concourse. Water begins to surge through the open doors into a stalled train.
Mom is shaking so hard the vibrations travel across the couch. None of us can stand to eat anymore.
Aunt Irene makes a move to turn the TV off, but then the image snaps back into focus, the colours tinted blue, briefly bleeding into one another. Amongst the crowd of trapped passengers in the train is a girl close to my age: a pale face framed by a close-cropped blond bob. The deluge drags her off her feet, her arms flail, she grabs the edge of the door. There’s a moment when it seems like she’ll manage to swim forward, against the current, but she’s slowed by the weight of her clothing, a floral skirt and ivory cardigan. She manages to haul herself halfway out of the train before the foamy crest of a second wave collapses into her.
The news anchor, his voice tinny and distant: “There are reports of people trapped in buildings as well as in Tube stations like this one. They’ve made desperate calls, asking for help, asking for rescue, but the rescuers can’t get in. It’s simply too dangerous.”
The camera catches an image of the girl kissing a bubble of air trapped against the ceiling of the Tube train. Her face is dreamy with terror—and something else, longing maybe. Has she been waiting for this? A tiny stud in her ear winks at me.
“Please, will you just turn it off, Irene? I can’t—I can’t…” Mom moans.
The image shrinks to a single point of light, then vanishes. Mom fidgets, pulls up the edge of a thin coral throw into her lap. Her legs are tucked underneath her, and she looks like a little kid watching a horror movie. “Thank god,” she says. “Thank god we’re safe.”
“Do you think she survived?” I know she didn’t. “They can’t show us something like that without letting us know whether she made it or not.”
The chili lurches in my stomach. We sit in silence and I hold in my thoughts: How old was that girl? and no one could have got her out in time and even after everything, thank god, thank god, it wasn’t me.
But at the same time there’s a part of me that understands, a part that recognized that look in her eyes. She wanted it to happen. And finally I understand. This is what the nymphs have been waiting for: the beginning of the end.